Latest news with #CannesPalmed'Or
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jafar Panahi Returns to Cheers in Tehran as Palme d'Or Victory Prompts Diplomatic Spat Between France and Iran
Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi has returned to Tehran cheered by supporters after scooping the Cannes Palme d'Or for his new film 'It Was Just an Accident' which is sparking a diplomatic spat between Iran and France. Panahi arrived at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on Monday morning greeted by applause, as he hugged friends and fans who presented him with flowers when the revered auteur descended the escalator from passport control, as seen on social media posts. More from Variety 'The Love That Remains' Review: Hlynur Pálmason's Exquisitely Tender, Increasingly Haywire Portrait of a Family in Limbo Inside TikTok's Cannes Film Festival Takeover, From One-on-One Time With Tom Cruise to Reece Feldman's Short Film Premiere Jafar Panahi's Cannes Palme d'Or Is a 'Powerful Blow to the Machinery of Repression in the Islamic Republic,' Says 'Seed of the Sacred Fig' Director Mohammad Rasoulov (EXCLUSIVE) Meanwhile, also on social media, a spat has erupted after French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called Panahi's victory 'a gesture of resistance against the Iranian regime's oppression' in a post on X. This in turn prompted an irked reaction from Tehran. 'I am not an art expert, but we believe that artistic events and art in general should not be exploited to pursue political objectives,' said Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei. Panahi was able to travel to Cannes to promote his surreptitiously shot film after being incarcerated twice for 'propaganda against the state' and banned from making films, speaking to the press, and leaving Iran for more than 14 years. 'It Was Just an Accident' is about a group of former political prisoners who kidnap a man whom they believe to be their former interrogator and torturer. The film, which the director in an interview with Variety said was inspired by his experiences in an Iranian prison, has now given Panahi, who is 64, the rare distinction of having won the top prize at all three major European film festivals, after taking Berlin's Golden Bear for 'Taxi' in 2015 and the Golden Lion at Venice for 'The Circle' in 2000. Panahi was not able to attend those festivals due to his ban which was lifted in April 2023. Iranian media have largely ignoring Jafar Panahi's momentous Cannes Palme d'Or victory. Though Iran's state news agency IRNA trumpeted Panahi's award with a picture of him and the headline 'The world's largest film festival made history for Iranian cinema,' news that Panahi scooped the Palme did not appear on the websites of the nation's top English-language news outlets, Tehran Times and Iran Daily on Sunday. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Inside TikTok's Cannes Film Festival Takeover, From One-on-One Time With Tom Cruise to Reece Feldman's Short Film Premiere
TikTok creators got the surprise of their lives during the first week of Cannes Film Festival, when Tom Cruise showed up to give a talk on his new film 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' ahead of its premiere. The 34 film-centric creators, who TikTok invited to the festival from across the globe, thought they were just coming to the platform's festival hub at the J.W. Marriott for a content creation workshop — until Cruise came out of nowhere. In partnership with Paramount, Cruise gave a 20-minute fireside chat with creator Reece Feldman (@guywithamoviecamera on the platform) and then hung around for about an hour after to have one-on-one conversations with as many of the TikTokers as possible. More from Variety Jafar Panahi's Cannes Palme d'Or Is a 'Powerful Blow to the Machinery of Repression in the Islamic Republic,' Says 'Seed of the Sacred Fig' Director Mohammad Rasoulov (EXCLUSIVE) 'Militantropos' Review: Austere Anti-War Doc Employs Formal Control in an Impassioned Defense of Ukraine 'The Last One for the Road' Review: A Pleasant Italian Gem on Drinking Buddies, Aging and Wistful Flavors of Life 'I've never asked permission to create,' Cruise told the room. 'Actors and filmmakers and businessmen say, 'What should I do?' Do it. Learn it, apply it and don't wait to know everything. The only way to learn is to go jump in, and don't worry about making mistakes.' For TikTok's EMEA head of content operations Marlène Masure, the time with Cruise underlines just how valuable TikTok has become not just as an official partner of the festival, but within the film industry as a whole. 'Having two hours in Tom Cruise's agenda is a testament to the power of our movie community and how important they are,' she told Variety during the festival, adding: 'I hope that this will inspire other studios to give bigger access to creators to top talents.' Indeed, TikTok's presence at the festival this year felt larger than ever, with several events and activations taking place. The platform had its own party, an industry brunch where Feldman interviewed Daniel Kaluuya about redefining fandom, and hosted a premiere for Feldman's first short film, 'Wait, Your Car?.' For Feldman, who started posting videos on the platform in 2020 of his experience working on the set of 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and now has 2.4 million followers, it was a pinch-me moment. 'That was always the dream,' he said of premiering his first project at Cannes. 'If I won the lottery at any point in my life, the first thing I was going to do was be like, 'Alright, let's sit down, let's choose one of the scripts I've written and let's get really practical about making this.'' Having been told about the opportunity in February, Feldman had roughly three months to write, cast, shoot, edit and deliver the short. 'Wait, Your Car?,' starring Whitney Peak, Ruby Cruz, Minnie Mills and Noa Fisher, follows four girls whose friendship is put to the test after one of them becomes convinced that her car is trying to kill her. The reception to the short in the Palais was glowing, with the screening room filled to standing-room only. Feldman plans to continue taking the short around the festival circuit in hopes that studios and production companies will take it as 'proof of style.' 'It's showing you how I like to shoot things, the tone, the timing, the tempo, the writing style, the humor,' he said. 'So that's the thing that I'm most excited for people to take away, like, 'That's the distinct voice of Reece.'' Masure sees the Cannes partnership, which started four years ago, as a way to give back to TikTok's thriving #FilmTok community and provide an inside look at the festival to those on the platform who may be discovering it for the first time. By the second week of the festival, 27,000 videos had been created on TikTok with the hashtag #Cannes2025, up from 22,000 last year, and posts from creators at the festival garnered over 26 million combined views. 'Cannes used to be a bit more restricted to a certain community of moviemakers in the movie industry,' Masure said. 'That's the whole purpose of what we do — provide more visibility to these talents. Everyone creating content on the platform can have a chance to become a great moviemaker.' Creator and presenter Zainab Jiwa (@zeewhatidid) has seen firsthand the growth in interest regarding the festival with her majority Gen-Z audience. 'It's been a great way to give them access into a space that seems exclusive in a way,' she said. 'What I've tried to do in every step of my journey is to take the audience with me, because I never had that growing up.' Jiwa, who went viral last fall for her playful junket interview with Denzel Washington in which he gave life advice, was on hand in the second week of the festival to be the platform's red carpet host for the premieres of Wes Anderson's 'The Phoenician Scheme,' Spike Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest' and more. Though Jiwa may be holding a mic and talking to some of Hollywood's biggest stars, she acknowledges that her purpose is different than that of a journalist — many of whom have become frustrated in recent years with lack of access to talent at Cannes and other festivals. 'My aim in an interview in general isn't to get something out of them,' she said. 'I'm not here to find the scoop — my aim is to make them feel comfortable and to just have a chat because that's what my audience wants.' Both Jiwa and Feldman are also open about the fact that they partner with studios on many of their conversations. 'At the end of the day, I'm biased,' Feldman said. 'I'm being hired by these studios, so my opinion is, from the get-go, moot.' But that doesn't mean that they're only asking throwaway questions. In fact, Masure considers conversations between stars like Cruise and creators like Feldman to be more like peer discussions. 'He was very technical,' she said of Feldman's questions to Cruise, many of which centered around how he pulled off 'Mission: Impossible 8's' crazy stunt work. 'I mean, the guy has been working in movie production so he knows a great deal about this. It felt almost like a movie professional to another movie professional.' Overall, TikTok having a large presence at Cannes just makes practical sense to Feldman, as he sees the film industry and social media as now being 'intrinsically tied.' 'I think it's good to lean into the TikTok of it all,' he said. 'It doesn't mean having to ask talent to do dances — it could really just be hey, here's how you sign up for the festival.' He continued: 'Social doesn't have to be used in the most extreme of ways, and TikTok is a place where it's approachable. I do believe that it acts almost as a public sphere, and I think it's good that we're forced to confront voices outside of the ones that we just choose to hear.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
USA Today
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
NEON flexed its sixth straight Cannes Palme d'Or win with a Michael Jordan rings pic
NEON flexed its sixth straight Cannes Palme d'Or win with a Michael Jordan rings pic Film distributor NEON is on an absolutely incredible run at the Cannes Film Festival, picking up its sixth straight Palme d'Or victory on Saturday for filmmaker Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident. NEON picked up the film's distribution rights earlier in the week, which keeps the studio's Palme d'Or streak alive after the 2025 Cannes jury picked Panahi's film for the top prize. Another NEON film, Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value, walked away with the Grand Prix this year, Cannes' second highest honor for a title in competition. After Panahi's film won the 2025 Palme d'Or on Saturday, NEON bragged about its sixth straight victory by posting a photo of Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan with his six NBA championship rings. What a mic drop. The distributor posted a similar Cannes NBA flex last year with Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant commemorating his five championships. Now, it gets to six with Air Jordan. NEON's five consecutive Palme d'Or winners before It Was Just an Accident were 2019's Parasite, 2021's Titane, 2022's Triangle of Sadness, 2023's Anatomy of a Fall and 2024's Anora. All of those films outside of Titane were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, and two (Parasite, Anora) won it outright. We'll see if NEON can keep its stunning Cannes Palme d'Or streak next year... and if it keeps these awesome NBA posts going, too.
Fibre2Fashion
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Fibre2Fashion
France's Lacoste welcomes Adí¨le Exarchopoulos as new face of the brand
Lacoste announces that Adèle Exarchopoulos, one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation, is joining the iconic French brand as a new ambassador. Adèle Exarchopoulos becomes one of the new faces of Lacoste. Born in Paris, she perfectly embodies the effortless elegance at the heart of the Crocodile brand. She will embody the Maison with boldness and style across various brand moments, including those linked to the Leather Goods category. Adí¨le Exarchopoulos, acclaimed French actress and Cannes Palme d'Or winner, has been named the new ambassador for Lacoste. Known for her bold and diverse roles, she will represent the brand's effortless elegance, particularly in its Leather Goods category. Lacoste CEO Thierry Guibert praised her authenticity and alignment with the brand's spirit. Revealed to the world in her breakout role in Blue Is the Warmest Color, Adèle Exarchopoulos became the youngest recipient of the Palme d'Or in the history of the Cannes Film Festival. Her performance also earned her the César Award for Most Promising Actress. She has since pursued a successful and eclectic career, and in 2024, won the César Award for Best Supporting Actress for All Your Faces. Her trajectory is praised for the diversity of her roles — from auteur cinema to major box office successes — making her one of France's most beloved actresses. Her filmography includes Sibyl (2019), Mandibles (2020), Zero Fucks Given (2021), Passages (2023), and L'Amour ouf (2024). This year, she stars in two major upcoming films: L'Accident de Piano by Quentin Dupieux and Chien 51 by Cédric Jimenez. 'Adèle Exarchopoulos joining our Maison felt like a natural fit. She embodies the authenticity and bold spirit of Lacoste. Her talent and energy resonate deeply with our values. We are proud to welcome her as a Lacoste ambassador.' Thierry Guibert, CEO of Lacoste . 'I'm honored to represent such an iconic, universal, and forward-thinking brand. To me, Lacoste perfectly embodies the fusion of style and sport, elegance and ease — a balance that truly resonates with me.' said Adèle Exarchopoulos . Note: The headline, insights, and image of this press release may have been refined by the Fibre2Fashion staff; the rest of the content remains unchanged. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RM)
